With great regret, I have to share this story with you…it’s sad, but very true.

I was at work last night and we had our usual craze between 10PM to midnight (and beyond…yup, I work the overnight shift!). We were trying to sort out an insurance issue for one of our patients in the first lane of our drive-thru (we’ll call her Sally) while another car sat waiting in the second lane. While my colleagues were dealing with the drive-thru patients, I was on the phone with a not so happy patient. Evidently someone was here to pick-up her medications and one of them was not ready…she said the person picking up for her was in the drive-thru in a red Bronco (take note of that last part, it’s somewhat important!)

So, I solved the problem with the upset patient on the phone and had one of my colleagues sell her prescription to the person picking up for her (to the red Bronco guy in lane 2). Meanwhile, Sally ended up coming inside to call her insurance in hopes of solving the problem. Unfortunately her insurance had expired so she ended up taking her prescriptions back (one of which was for Percocet).

We carried on with our work, helping patients as they came along and keeping things straight in the pharmacy. About 30 minutes later, Sally called us and she was a bit freaked out. Apparently, the red Bronco guy (who had been in lane 2 while she was in lane 1) came up to her outside after she left the store and asked her if she had purchased a prescription for a narcotic. If so, he wanted to buy the narcotic prescription from her.

NOTE: Narcotics are prescription medications used to treat severe pain, and they are commonly sold illegally on the street as a recreational drug (gets people high and happy).

The red Bronco guy had overheard the discussion between Sally and my colleague while sitting in the drive-thru. Somewhere in that conversation, the Percocet prescription had been discussed so he knew she was there to pick-up an opiate medication. Even though his business was done at the pharmacy, he stuck around in the parking lot until Sally came out of the store…that’s when he made his move.

Luckily, Sally had not filled/purchased her Percocet prescription - who knows what may have gone down if she had! It is unlikely that Sally would have been hurt, but there have been cases like Sally’s where people have been attacked. Instead, Sally was just freaked out (rightfully so) and wanted to warn us about the red Bronco guy.

Not only can pharmacies be held up, but you can be too - you may have what the bad person wants. If they want your medications badly enough, they may take drastic measures to get them. I don’t want to scare you as it’s rare that something like what happened to Sally would happen to you - just wanted to make sure you are cautious of your surroundings!

If you feel you need more privacy at the pharmacy, please let the pharmacy staff know and I’m sure they will do what they can to satisfy your needs…besides, it is the law!

Has Sally’s situation happened to you before Definitely share your story because I believe that the more cases shared, the more cautious others will be!

Picture it. You go to the pharmacy to get your prescription filled. You drop it off with the bubbly pharmacy clerk at the window. You’ve come here before so naturally you expect that it will be ready in a reasonable amount of time. You step away from the counter and go around the store to kill time. You go back to the nice window clerk and politely give your name, fully expecting a prescription with your name on it will be sitting neatly in a bag on the shelf ready to go home with you.

Alas, you watch the clerk go from the “ready-to-be-picked-up” prescriptions area to the filling area… The clerk talks to the pharmacy technician, the pharmacy technician talks to the pharmacist… no one talks to you just yet. Gasp… uh oh, you know this isn’t going to be good. Now you can react in one of several ways, but we won’t get into that. I’m going to tell you how to avoid these types of scenarios because they are all-too-common and very preventable.

Believe it or not your pharmacist really wants to help you. It does us no good to hold onto all those prescription medications and not give them to folks who need them. Best of all, pharmacists (most pharmacists anyway),like to teach people about their medications and best practices for taking them properly so as to get the best results. There isn’t always time to go into great detail which is a source of frustration for everyone but one can try to make the most of every opportunity.

So how can you avoid glitches at the pharmacy and sail right through?

1. Keep all your records up-to-date: insurance information changes from time to time and whilst your employer may make the switchover nice and seamless for you, you don’t always make it quite as seamless for the pharmacy. If your regular pharmacy has your old information on file, you can be sure that your old insurance will be quick to drop you once your coverage is terminated. Take preemptive action and update your insurance information with your pharmacy of choice before you actually need to have anything filled. This will save you time when you go in to actually get a prescription filled.

2. Look at the clock: you know how it feels when 4:45pm hits and you start preparing mentally and physically to call it a day at the office right? Well, the folks at the pharmacy go through the same thing too. Walking in 5 to 10 minutes before the pharmacy closes and expecting the pharmacist cheerfully to fill your prescription, check for drug interactions, handle any insurance issues that may come up, try to reach your doctor in case some vital information is missing from the prescription, give you a detailed patient consultation… and the list goes, is not a very reasonable expectation. Most doctor’s offices close long before the pharmacies do so try to drop off your prescription as early as you can so as to allow enough time for the pharmacist to fix any potential issues that may arise.

3. Read your documentation: without fail, when you first sign up for an insurance plan the insurance company will send you important paperwork that explains all your benefits. Now how do I put it nicely and succinctly — read it, read it, read it. It is unfair to expect your pharmacist to explain to you what drugs are covered on your plan, what your deductibles are, what your co-payments are, what the difference is between your deductible and your co-payments, etc. If you think it’s something they ought to do for you then surely it’s something they ought to do for everyone else too… there wouldn’t be very much actual prescription-filling going on now would there? It’s rough I know, but it’s for the best. After all, you need to know that stuff too. Also, trying to argue about your payment (especially after it has been processed through your insurance company, whether or not you have been rung up) is not going to help. The pharmacist has no control, repeat, no control, over your co-payments or deductibles. They just basically tell you verbally what your insurance company tells them electronically.

4. Respect the pharmacy for what it is: if you happen to use a pharmacy that is in a drug store or a grocery store then take note. Most of the time, the pharmacy folks don’t mind ringing up a few non-pharmacy items for you along with your prescription, emphasis on few, it’s just the decent, kind thing to do. However, don’t go overboard, don’t approach the pharmacy counter with your months’ worth of groceries and expect that anyone will take too kindly to having to ring them all up. Be realistic and respectful of their time and the other responsibilities they have to take care of.

Stay tuned for Part 2, coming soon.

This is what I hear all the time at the pharmacy:

“Are generic drugs really as good as the Brand name “

Me: “Do you want the brand or the generic “

Patient: “I want the real stuff” (meaning the brand)

“Why are generics so much cheaper than the brand “

That brings me to why I’m here…to sort out any confusion you have about generic vs. brand-name drugs.

Generic drugs have the same exact dosage form (i.e. tablet or capsule), strength, safety, quality, route of administration (i.e. by mouth), planned use, and performance characteristics (they work just as well) as the brand name they are replacing.

Drug manufacturers have all the legal rights to a drug when it is first made (the drug is protected under a document called a patent). In the drug world, this protection is good for 17 years (for most drugs). It is illegal for other companies to make a generic drug before the patent on the brand name product has expired.

Millions of dollars are spent when trying to get a new drug to the market. These millions go toward researching, developing, advertising, and promoting the new drug. A generic is so much cheaper to make because the government allows the companies to skip some of the steps the brand name company already finished - they do not have to make the generic from scratch. Because the production costs of making a generic are so much lower, when the generic is ready to hit the pharmacy shelves, the manufacturers can sell it for less.

NOTE: Just because a generic is cheaper does not mean it was made in a facility that is dirty or has poor quality. Most of these generics are made in the same places as brand name drugs are!

It is a law that the generic cannot look exactly like the brand - its color, shape, or size have to be different - just because it does not look the same does not mean the generic works differently.

It is not true that the brand name drug works faster than its generic does - the FDA does not approve a generic unless it works just as quickly as the brand.

The FDA must approve all generic drugs before they can be sold to patients!

With all that being said, I urge you to try the generic if there is one available - the use of generics saves millions of dollars in healthcare costs. The millions saved can then be used in other areas of the healthcare system.